Two other passages in the Epistles demand con- sideration. In Ro 6" St. Paul is glad that the Romans have become sincerely obedient ' to that form of teaching ' to which they were delivered ; and in 2 Ti 1^^ there is an exhortation to ' hold the form (RV 'pattern') of sound words which thou hast heard from me.' The word used in Rom. is Ti'TTos, which must be taken in its usual Pauline sense of ' pattern,' ' standard.' No special type of doctrine is meant (see F. J. A. Hort, Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians, 1895, p. 32) ; tlie refer- ence is to a course of simple instruction, like that in the first part of the Didache ('The Two Ways'), which preceded baptism. In 2 Tim. we have the compound vwoT'ilwwcns, lit. an ' outline sketch,' and BO a 'pattern' or 'example.' It is the emphatic word in the sentence, and the meaning is best brought out by the translation, ' Hold as a pattern of healthy teaching, in faith and love, what you heard from me.' A. J. Grieve.
FORMALISM. — As thought needs language and soul needs body, so tlie spirit of religion can main- tain, manifest and propagate itself, can relate itself to its environment, only as it is einbodied in external form. It takes intellectual form in doctrines and creeds ; its emotional necessities create forms of worship ; its social instincts express themselves in ecclesiastical organization and sacra- mental rites, in all its instruments and symbols of corporate action. Hence arises inevitably the danfjer of formalism: the 'form of godliness' (2 Ti 3") may persist after the power which origin- ally created it has evaporated, and it may be in- herited or adopted by those who have never had experience of the inward reality. Formalism in this proper sense of the word is to be distinguished
from hypocrisy (the consciously fraudulent assump- tion of the externals of religion), and other varieties of unreality in religion. The typical formalist is the angel of the church in Sardis, of whom it is written : ' Thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead' (Rev 3'). Unlike his Laodicean neighbour, who is ' neither cold nor hot,' he sets a liigTi value upon the Christian name, and firmly believes that to do so is to be earnestly Christian. He mistakes zealous performance of acts of worship for real devotion, and punctilious orthodoxy for living conviction. He sincerely respects the badges and expressions of spiritual life, believes them to be necessary and effectual unto salvation, while he is ignorant of, and without desire for, the reality which they express. He is a ' well without water ' (2 P 2").
In the apostolic writings formalism of various kinds is detected and rebuked.
1. The substitution of religious observances for religious reality. — [a] Such observances may be sacramental, belonging to the prescribed ritual ; and to these the danger of formalism always attaches in a high degree, the performance of the ritual act being always regarded by tlie unspiritual man as setting him in a right relation to God. Thus St. Paul accuses the Jews of formalism with regard to circumcision (Ro 2-'"^'), admonishing them tliat ' he is not a Jew who is one outwardly . . . circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter.' Otherwise it is become ' uncircumcision,' a falsehood against which the virtue of the unprivileged Gentile will rise up in judgment. In St. Paul's controversy with the Judaizers, the issue was between a legal and a spiritual conception of religion rather than between formalism and reality. Yet the latter element also was involved, and is emphasized by his re- peatedly contrasting both circumcision and un- circumcision with the inward essence and ethical manifestation of Christianity — ' a new creature ' (Gal 6'^), 'faith that worketh by love' (5"), ' keep- ing the commandments of God'(l Co 7'^). Here with deep insight St. Paul places 'uncircumcision' on the same footing with 'circumcision.' If the advocates of freedom supposed that there was any virtue in uncircumcision per se, they were only sub- stituting one fetish for another. As there are persons who make a convention of unconventional- ity, so in religion repudiation of form may become only a different species of formalism.
(b) Not only ritual or sacramental acts, but all observances which are labelled ' religious,' even those which are most directly designed for instruc- tion and edification, are exposed to the same danger. Having exhorted his readers to 'receive with meekness the implanted word,' St. James ^•21-25) hastens to preclude the notion that such ' hearing,' as a mere opus operatiim, has any re- ligious value. Without ' doing ' it is no less barren of good result than a cursory glance at one's own image in a mirror (cf. Ro 2^*). Closely akin to this formalism of 'hearing' is that which substi- tutes fluent religious talk for religious conduct (Ja P^-'-^). The pure undefiled Op-qa-Keia, the true Christian cultits, is to ' visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.'
2. The formalism of intellectual orthodoxy. — The classical passage is Ja 2''''^''. Signifying by ' faith ' not the vital spiritual act, but tlie orthodox confession which is its proper 'form,' the writer vigorouslj' declares that such faith, 'if it have not works,' is dead in itself (v.^"), a body uninhabited by the quickening spirit (v.-^). St. Paul advances even lieyond this position when (1 Co 13^^) he asserts that one may have 'all faith, so as to remove mountains,' yet if it be 'without charity, he is